He’d never said that out loud before. Cody wasn’t sure he could have articulated it quite like that—not to anyone else. Not anywhere else. And now it was out there and all he wanted was to shove it back inside.
But she didn’t give him a pep talk. She didn’t make sympathetic sounds that he would have found unbearable. She didn’t try to commiserate with him.
“Lose the fire of anything,” she said after a moment, very matter-of-factly, as if they were talking about the kind of thing everybody did, “and of course it feels like a chore.”
Cody rubbed his hand over his chest before he realized what he was doing. He slapped it back on the steering wheel and scowled out into the darkness. “Except the chore in this case is a thousand-pound and then some pissed-off bull who wants to stomp your ass. And will, first chance he gets.”
She laughed at that, that scrape of sound that made him think she didn’t laugh much, and there was no reason it should make him scowl less.
“I grant you that losing the fire that makes you want to be a barista, for example, just leads to you making a substandard latte,” Skylar said. “It’s not the same as jumping on a bull. But then again, what is?”
That was the question that had kept him doing it all these years. The question that made him set his jaw and ignore all the minor, survivable agonies that would take other men down. What got him to tape himself up and do it night after night. He liked the money. He liked to win. He liked that he’d been able to help his half-sisters. But he’d always loved the sport.
“It’s easy to fall out of love with bull riding, Skylar,” he said now. “Because everything hurts, always, and torn ligaments and broken bones are just all in a weekend’s ride. Win or lose, you’re still gonna hurt.”
She shifted beside him, but she didn’t say anything, and he kept going. Like this was some kind of confessional, the dark road outside his truck and the quiet within. That scent of hers: cedar and sun. That thing in his chest that was clawing its way out whether he wanted it to or not.
“You’re always on the road. City after city until you can’t tell the difference between them and don’t even care. One hotel room after another until you forget where you are or that you ever had roots somewhere else. And the truth is that you can do everything right. You can train and test yourself, eat right and practice, get your head right and still get a bull who isn’t in the mood to do his part. That leaves you busted up and pissed off and hundreds of miles from home for nothing. That’s the life.” He sighed. “I’m sick of the life.”
“I hope that’s not a cry for help.” But her voice was light. Soft and teasing. And with that other thread in it that pricked at him, as if he should understand it. Recognize it, when he didn’t. Or didn’t want to. “I don’t want to see you doing a little suicide by Bushwacker tomorrow night.”
He was talking about things he didn’t talk about. This whole night had been him behaving in a way he didn’t behave. And still, his lips twitched at that. “Bushwacker retired years ago.”
And had never been one of the legendary bulls on the American Extreme Bull Riders Tour, but he didn’t point that out.
“I’m sure he has a successor who’s just as mean.” Skylar let out that rusty little laugh, and he didn’t get how it was more effective than another woman’s hands all over him. He didn’t understand what she was doing to him. “There’s never any shortage of ornery bulls.”
“Maybe not.” He shook his head, because this strange trance that still had him in its grip had to go. “But I do take some pride in being the most ornery bull rider on the tour.”
Another laugh. “Is there a lot of competition for the title?”
“No, ma’am, there is not. Because I dominate in all things, but that especially.” Cody could have kept it light. Funny. He didn’t know why he didn’t. “I keep to myself. I don’t need more friends I’m going to have to visit in hospitals, then have to lie to when I tell them they’ll be fine. No more graves I’m going to have to stand over. No more. This is my last season.”
He hadn’t said that out loud either to anyone but his mother, and not so starkly. He was in his thirties, which made him ancient in bull-riding circles. He got asked all the time what his retirement plans were and how much longer he thought he’d stay and fight, and he always mouthed something noncommittal. Except here. With her.
Of course.
Skylar didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t tell if it was because she didn’t understand the magnitude of what he’d told her or possibly didn’t care. He didn’t think it was that second one, but what did he know? Still, a kind of agitation gnawed at him as he turned off the main road and followed the dirt track that wound its way down to a deserted little field near the river. His headlights picked up his Airstream right where he’d left it, looking sleek and shiny in the dark.
“Oh,” she said softly. “You bring your roots with you on tour. That makes sense.”
Cody would never have put it that way.
“I like to be alone,” he muttered. He pulled up to the trailer and turned the truck off and for a moment they sat there in the dark.
“Change is hard,” Skylar said while his eyes were still adjusting. “No matter what. No matter why. It’s always, always hard. Believe me, I understand.”
“I didn’t intend to get philosophical,” he told her then. “Or whatever this was. I think I was pretty clear that my intention was to get laid. Repeatedly. All night long, in fact, despite the fact I need my sleep.”
This time, she really laughed, and there was nothing rusty about it. It filled up the cab of the truck, and his chest, too.
“Well, thank goodness this long drive out into the middle of nowhere didn’t get awkward or anything,” she said, her voice thick with that laughter. It felt like her hands all over him. “I mean think what could have happened. All those dark promises of a night of passion—a full one this time, to separate it from the other night, which for some reason couldn’t stand on its own. And instead it’s all become metaphor and philosophy and how bull riding is life, really. Except more painful. And here we are, down by a river near a lonely old trailer like a country song.” She shook her head, and more of that scent filled the air between them, making him feel hollowed out with need. “And I know you must know that a country song never ends well, especially for a cowboy.”
Cody laughed at that. Her. He didn’t question it. And he didn’t think about what he was doing. He just reached over and got his hands on her, at last. At last. He hauled her toward him, down the bench seat and then up onto his lap, and then finally—finally—he shut himself up, and put his mouth where it belonged. On hers.
She tasted better than he remembered, and in his memory she was spectacular.
It was all fire. Sugar and flame. She was sweet and she was hot and she didn’t play any games. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she fought to get closer to him. She angled her jaw and took him deeper, as if she was mimicking what she knew was going to happen later. What needed to happen now.
Him deep inside her, forever, if he could swing it.
But here, now, he reveled in the feel of her on his lap. This pretty thing, this unreadable woman, who made a lot more sense to him when she was making those greedy little noises in the back of her throat.
It almost hurt to pull his mouth from hers. But he did it.
“Let me guess,” she whispered against his mouth, and moved a little on his lap in emphasis. “You’re going to tell me some more about that one good ride.”
She was going to kill him. And he was going to like it.
But it wasn’t going to happen in his damn truck.
Cody wrenched open his door and climbed out, pulling her with him. It wasn’t the slickest move he’d ever made, but he didn’t much care when she just let herself fall against him, the soft weight of her as welcome as a touch. Better.
He even found himself holding her hand, taking it in his as he walked toward the trailer. But she only
went a few steps, then stopped. She pulled back against his hand and he realized she was tipping her head back to stare up at the night sky.
“You can’t ignore the stars,” she told him when he stopped walking too. “There are people in places all over the world who look up and don’t see anything. The lights of the city they live in, maybe. Their neighbor’s house. But not this.”
Cody couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at the damn stars. Deliberately, anyway. But that was the trouble with Skylar. She kept getting under his skin. He couldn’t seem to resist her and that was no good. He knew it. She was the kind of trouble he knew he didn’t want.
But he didn’t do anything about it. He didn’t toss her back in his truck and drive her back into town, then wash his hands of her the way he knew he should. Instead, he moved so he could wrap his arms around her, like somebody’s boyfriend, and he tipped his own head back to stare at the stars along with her.
Like he was that guy.
And then he made it worse, because they stood there like that for a long time.
“I lived in Atlanta for years,” she said, softly.
Maybe she was yelling, he couldn’t tell. Bright and wild, the sky was so dirty with stars it was as if someone had spilled them everywhere and forgotten to come pick them up again. The summer night was cluttered with them. So bright it seemed like they were pressing down from above. Hell, maybe she screamed. Cody wasn’t sure he could tell the difference when the night sky was making such a ruckus.
“I never had any intention of coming home to Montana, not to live,” Skylar continued. “If you’d asked me I would have told you a million reasons why I preferred to live in the city. Why it was the better choice for me. It was such a big city, bustling with people and things and restaurants and stores. Everything your heart could desire and more, and I loved it. But it didn’t have this.” She let out a sigh that seemed to come from deep inside of her, and Cody found himself holding her tighter. “I know the sky is everywhere but in Montana, it’s different. It’s closer. Bigger.”
Later, Cody would never know if she was the one who turned around or if he was the one who turned her around to face him, because he couldn’t take any more. But it didn’t matter. Because somehow or other she was turned around and they were facing each other, and then his mouth was on hers again.
Every time he kissed her it felt as if it had been years. Long, crappy years since the last time, and he was finally making it right.
And as bright as the stars were above them, Skylar burned brighter. She was hot and much too wild, and he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. He didn’t really try. He traced his way down the line of her back, then got his hands on her sweet butt. She nipped his lip and he pulled her closer, reveling in the crush of her breasts against the wall of his chest.
Then he was taking her down with him, down into the field where they’d been standing, because he needed to get horizontal with her. Immediately.
He rolled her over so she was sitting astride him, laughing a little bit, and he thought it was the best sound he’d ever heard. She reached down and pulled up her dress, tugging it up and over her head and then throwing it aside. She did the same with her bra and then there she was. Covered in starlight and even more beautiful than he remembered. More beautiful than anyone should be. Cody got his hands in her hair, he got his mouth between her breasts, and then he took his time learning her the way he wanted.
God, the way she tasted. One nipple as velvety as the next, and the noises she made when he sucked each one into his mouth about killed him. He was so hard it hurt.
She tilted her head back as he sucked on her, rocking her hips as if she couldn’t help herself as she rode him a little. But when he released her, she returned her attention to him. She ran her hands down his chest and let out a small sigh that sounded like happiness. She took her time unbuttoning his shirt, pulling open the sides to expose his skin and then bending forward to perform her own little acts of torture down the length of his torso. She pulled the ends of his shirt out of his waistband and then moved toward his buckle, and he didn’t do a single thing to stop her.
And any lingering doubts he might have had about her interest in the buckle itself disappeared, because she couldn’t seem to open it fast enough. No stopping to admire the win it heralded or to request a selfie, as one recent conquest had. Her hands were actually trembling as she pulled down his zipper and pulled him out, and he didn’t think it was trepidation. He thought it was the same insane hunger that stormed through him.
As if they were both just as pummeled by this thing.
She looked up at him, that crooked smile of hers enough to make his cock ache, and then she made it worse. Her hands gripped him as she shifted herself down, knelt between his thighs, and then bent to suck in the head. Just the head, as if she needed a taste to go on.
Then she looked up at him again.
“I want to taste you,” she whispered, in case he’d missed her clear intention.
And Cody was only a man. Not a very good one. And certainly not selfless enough to turn down her mouth. Who was he to deny a lady?
“Don’t let me stop you, darlin’,” he said lazily, and stretched out in the grass as she smiled at him, then sucked him in deep.
He let himself go as she played with him. She tested his length, sucking him in and then licking him when she pulled her head back. She moved her hips back and forth as she worked him, as if the same fire was building in her. And Cody lost himself in the wet heat of her. He sank his fingers into that silky dark hair of hers and met her rhythm. She sucked harder, took him deeper.
And he groaned out her name when he came.
When she crawled her way up to sit over him again, she was smiling.
He wasn’t sure his heart could take this. Cody had never wasted much time worrying about whether a perfect woman existed, but Skylar was proving him wrong, one crooked smile after the next. And he didn’t want to think through the implications of that. At this moment, out here in the dark with only the stars as witness, he didn’t care.
“My turn,” he growled.
He took his time laying her out on the grass beneath him. He pulled another pair of sexy little boy shorts off her hips, tugging them down along the length of her smooth legs and then casting them aside. And as he knelt back to get rid of his shirt and the rest of his clothes, he just looked at her. Lying there with the stars all over her, her arms tossed up over her head. She had her head thrown back as if there was a wind on her face, when the night was still. And that crooked, satisfied smile that made him feel things he didn’t know how to name.
Cody wanted more. He wanted everything.
He settled for getting himself between those sweet thighs of hers. He kissed his way down her body, reacquainting himself with those buttery nipples and the way her belly trembled just slightly when he played with her navel. He shouldered his way between her thighs, pulling her knees up so her legs hung down his back, and she was already gasping for air.
“I haven’t done anything yet,” he teased her, his voice a low rumble.
“I feel pretty sure that you will.”
He proved her right. He set his mouth to that perfect pussy of hers, already so wet and slick and sweet that the taste about made him crazy.
But he was a man who rode giant, largely untamed animals for fun and profit, so he could certainly handle a little crazy.
Cody took his time. He licked his way into her and learned every last contour of that sweet little pussy. He let her move her hips beneath him, crying out her need into the night. He played with her clit until she sobbed. He found every last little sweet spot that made her buck up against him and hiss a little and hold her breath. And when she really got going, call out his name.
She tugged on his head, her fingers clenched deep in his hair, and he loved the little sting of it. He also loved ignoring her. He licked where he wanted. Sometimes he used his fingers.
And every time she c
ame, bucking and crying and rolling all over him, drumming his back with her heels, she did it in his mouth.
And when she was limp and gasping, so breathless she couldn’t form any more words—or at least not any he could understand, he crawled back up the length of that sweet body of hers, covered her with his, rolled on a condom and finally thrust himself deep inside of her.
He’d wanted fast, dirty. He’d thought that was the promise they’d made, insofar as they’d promised each other anything, back in that restaurant. But this wasn’t that.
This wasn’t anything like that.
Cody didn’t know what to call this.
It was slow. Intense. She wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, and she met him. She met his every thrust, she took him so deep it made his head spin, and together they became one bright, gleaming thing, like the sky so quiet and full above them.
Too bright. Too full.
Until Cody couldn’t tell which was which.
And this time, when she hurtled over that edge and started to shake apart, he went with her.
Chapter Six
Skylar didn’t know who was more surprised when she walked into the house early the next morning, her or Angelique, who was standing there in the great front foyer with a pile of laundry in her arms when the door opened.
Not laundry, Skylar corrected herself as she eased the door closed behind her with a soft click. It looked like one of the throws that was usually over the back of one of the couches in the family room, and it didn’t take a private eye like Veronica Mars to figure out that Lacey or Layla had probably spilled something on it. Or vomited on it. Or any of the many other things little kids could do in seconds to render everything sticky and in need of a good wash.
Angelique stared. Skylar stared back, and tried out a little smile to ease the awkwardness.
While outside there was no pretending that wasn’t a big truck pulling away from the curb in front of the house, then roaring off into the dark this side of dawn.
“It’s bad enough that you’re so pretty in the middle of the day when you’ve had time to do things,” Skylar said in as casual a voice as she could muster while she was wearing last night’s dress and letting her sandals hang from one finger. She didn’t want to think about the state of her hair. And anyway, it happened to be true. Angelique was ridiculously beautiful around the clock. Tall, leggy, with long brown hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head. She wore yoga pants and a tank top at five-thirty in the morning, just rolled out of bed and clearly already elbow deep in handling her twin girls, and looked better than Skylar did after hours of preparation. “But why do you look so good when it’s barely dawn?”